Worried about imperfect jaw alignment post surgery

[toth21]

So I am almost 10 weeks into my recovery phase after a surgery to pull my lower jaw backwards due to a bad cross bite. I am 32 years old and living in Germany as a foriegner.

It wasn't fun, but in the end I am recovering my lip sensation, and my bite feels more normal. However, I had some serious pain and aligment issues about 4 weeks in, where one molar on my right side received ALL the pressure of my bite. Since then it has adjusted, but that right side of my bite is still not correct. I will describe what I mean below.

I would add that I don't entirely trust my Orthodontist at the moment. When I had my serious alignment issues she was on vacation for a month and left no substitute. I ended up having to go to 3 other offices, and waiting hours to get second opinions (no one wanted responsibility). Finally a clinic added a bit of cement to the opposite side to balance the pressure. When I brought this up with my orthodontist last month and tried to explain what the other orthodontist's had said, she flipped out and gave me a 10 minute lecture, about trusting her judgement (though she wasn't around at the time I needed her). She even threatened to get rid of me as a client. It was.... a truly ridiculous experience.

So here I am just hoping to get an idea if this sort of thing is a common issue and will simply fix itself with time...

What seems to be wrong:
The left side of my jaw is now perfect with the front bottom teeth properly zipped up behind the top teeth. There is the perfect amount of room and it feels and looks normal.

The right side is not... the front most bottom teeth are only barely behind the top, and about 1-1.5mm too high compared to the other side. I still have a vertical gap between one of my top and bottom molars about half way back on this side, where it looks like the bottom teeth should simply be further back by about 1mm or so. This vertical gap is also 1-1.5mm.

The whole side feels wierd when I bite... like I can feel this misalignment, and I constantly feel the front bottom teeth pushing into the top teeth. The bottom teeth are trying to realign to this strange pressure arrangement with my braces on as well, and for 3-4 days were even starting to separate horizontally at the pressure point near the front.

So... is there someway this can still readjust even though the jaw should more or less be healed now? I'm worried the surgeon screwed it up and that side was not pushed far enough back. I will gently bring this up with my orthodontist, but I really don't want another lecture. This is also through my insurance here, and I don't want to suddenly be kicked off and forced to pay things out of pocket.

Thanks for any advice or words of reassurance!

[ticktickatick]

1) You may have one side of the jaw that is slightly smaller/shorter than the other. This is fairly common. It's also something that is not truly fixed by most jaw surgeries (more complicated than it appears to be). So your bite may not be great out of surgery until they compensate with ortho a little bit.

2) You may have higher ridges on your teeth on one side. There are occlusal ridges and marginal ridges. I have significantly higher ridges on one side because of a lifetime of unknowingly chewing on the other side. You can still correct the bite but the side with higher ridges will not feel right for a while. It helps to chew on that side more often.

3) The bottom teeth pushing into the top teeth...one possibility is that you have excess enamel on the underside of some of your teeth. Sort of like "baby enamel" that most adults with good bites don't have. Your ortho may have to burr off a teensy bit of enamel there to release the pressure.

If you are truly concerned with misalignment, though, you need to talk to your surgeon. Get a CT scan and have him/her compare it with the scan they took right after surgery. See if anything has moved or changed. Now is the time, not months later.